Poland Diary - Sunday 3rd July, 12:09, Gate 3, Kraków Airport

After breakfast yesterday morning we headed out walking to another part of town to visit Wawel Castle. We also got told we were going to another traditional Polish restaurant in the evening so I was a bit apprehensive after the whole fish/vegetarian debacle in the Chata restaurant on the first night. We walked around the castle and took some pictures (including a bunch in front of the Pope statue where I wasn’t really smiling because I couldn’t see…bet I look fun on those pictures…) From there we paid to go down a tower into a cave called Dragon’s Den. Loads of people took pictures but, seen as every single family holiday I go in involves going into a cave, I think I only took two. It took us out to the river Vistula where we went on boats down the river, eventually ‘racing’ each other (we won :P) - on our boat there was: Jade, me, Jess, Bethan, Emily, Becky, Stevan, Nigel Jess and Fiona (I tried to do that in order of who was sitting where but I can only remember half of it). 

We then walked back to the Square to get lunch. Me, Bethan and Stevan went to get bread (brilliantly inventive lunch) and corn from a stall and Jade walked off and left us without bothering to tell us where she’d gone. It annoyed us a bit because we weren’t supposed to go off alone at all, and she’d said she’d only be a minute. She later texted saying she was in Coffee Heaven with Jess and Jess. We all had to do group quizzes so we ran around all afternoon doing it then Jade and I went into St Mary’s Basilica. Everything was so detailed and beautiful - especially the stained glass windows - so it was annoying we couldn’t stay long. But, I’m glad I got to go (another Lonely Planet recommendation).

We got to go back to the hotel for about two hours but I couldn’t be bothered changing so I just sorted my make up out and sat in reception. For some reason, I just felt rubbish, and I had to sit down there to calm myself down. I ended up connecting to the wi-fi and doing a much needed blog post - it was mainly just a rant about being annoyed but it felt so good to write it and then post it. Fiona was also sat down there using the internet on her phone. I observed some random exchanges between the friendly receptionist lady and a random taxi driver…they shared an ice cream.

We went to Rocking Horse, the restaurant, and I was sat with Jess, Jess, Jade, Becky and Emily. We finished the group quiz, which was won by Jess, Jess, Becky and Emily then went back to the Square for one last time. Jade decided it would be a clever idea to change her mind about coming shopping with me and went back to the hotel. There was an awkward five minutes where all the teachers, myself, Jade, Jess and Jess were all standing in a circle trying to figure out who would stay with me instead of going back. Jess A volunteered even though she really didn’t feel well at all. We set off walking to the shops to go and finish souvenir buying and I randomly just started crying, so we went and sat on a bench and talked for about half an hour, which was so nice and we’re so similar. Everything she said I agreed with and vice versa. We decided to get thank you presents for Nigel, Lindsay and Fiona…one small problem though, everything closed for the festival. We managed to get Nigel a notebook and pencil from Empik (I say managed, because we were in there for AGES), and three gift bags, and eventually our favourite ‘Pope card’ shopkeeper reopened so we managed to get Lindsay and Fiona a dragon keychain and a pen each. The shopkeeper gave us some more Pope cards which we gave all but two of to Nigel again. While waiting for the shop to reopen we went and had one last coffee in our favourite little coffee shop. We had a nice little chat. The others all came back 'drunk' again. Great. There's nothing better than sharing a room with people who've been drinking...

When we went back to the hotel we asked the teachers to hang behind to give them their gifts but once we were back at the hotel, Jess got embarrassed and ran off…not embarrassing for me at all… They liked their gifts though, so it wasn’t so bad. They seemed genuinely surprised too, which was nice. When we were walking back from the Square, Fiona had asked me what I’d bought and I’d had to reply ‘stuff’ twice because I obviously couldn’t say what it actually all was. Nigel hugged me, which Jess found rather amusing when I later went to her room and told her what had happened. Sarah and Steph had clearly been drinking a lot more than the first night of them being drunk, so I quickly went to bed. Sarah did decide to leave the air conditioning on all night, though, so it took ages to get to sleep because it was SO noisy.